2C)Q The American Geologist. •"^'"-^■' i9^i- 
carr\ ing" a camping outfit, and a negro driver, who at the sanK^ 
time performed the office of cook. The cretaceous prairie 
country on the Tomhigby river was reached near Okolona, 
wlience the route lay through Aberdeen to Columbus ; thence, 
leaving the cretaceous territory, through Xeshoba and Kem- 
per counties to Enterprise on the Chickasawhay river, and 
along that stream, crossing all the marine tertiary stages, ^s 
far south as Leakville, Green comity. It then became appar- 
ent that there was not time to reach the coast, as intended, 
without the risk of being caught in a very remote and thinly 
settled region, by the early winter. We therefore turned west- 
ward at once and reached the ^Mississippi at Fort Adams, from 
which point we took steamer passage to Memphis, Tenn. 
This expedition was made too rapidly and with too few 
facilities for making collections, to afford anything more than 
a very general insight into the character and relations of the 
several cretaceous and tertiary stages. It was shown conclu- 
sively that the dip of all the marine tertiary beds is southward., 
except only as regards the Grand Gulf rocks, whose relations 
to the rest we had no opportunity of observing, since they are 
unrepresented in the Chickasawhay section, save by clays of 
which the equivalence was not then apparent. 
Meanwhile it had become apparent to the University trust-, 
ees that in its present form the survey was in more than one 
respect a burden to the University ; and. accordingly, at the 
legislative session of 1855-6. Governor ^^IcRae, in transmitting 
to the legislature the regular report of the trustees of the Uni- 
versity of Mississippi, accompanies it by a special message in 
which occurs the following passage : 
"The first portion of the trustees' report relates to the geo- 
logical survey of the state geologist, and proposes the separa- 
tion of this survey from the University : and asks that it may 
be taken charge of by the state, as an independent work un- 
der the direction of the governor. The reasons for this are 
fully set forth in the report, and may be recapitulated in brief 
as follows : 
1. The geological survey does not form a part of the course of in- 
struction in the University, and is not properly connected with the busi- 
ness of the institution. 
2. The duties of the State Geologist, under the present arrangement, 
being partly as professor in the University, partly in the field survey. 
